Ruled 2026-10-04: guard all errors. The errors that set NODE-ERROR and
let the line run on now stop it at once, with a message.
- A store of a non-zero code to NODE-ERROR is a trap, a sixth kind of
fault: nothing after it executes, the return stack is emptied, and the
data stack is left as the word left it. Not attached, NODE-ERROR is
plain memory, as the tests below the prompt use it.
- The capsule's words store a code where they stored -1, and the prompt's
(RAISED) prints its message: Negative count, Not a number, Number too
long, Not a character, Dictionary full, Name missing, Control structure
mismatch, Control structures too deep.
- ' and COMPILE and [COMPILE] of a word that is not there say
UNKNOWN WORD: 'xxx', as the interpreter does.
- tests: the trap in test_exec.c; every message from the prompt, with the
rest of the line not run and the stack kept, in test_host_quit.c.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Ruled 2026-10-04, revising D-2: stack overflow and underflow are errors
that are shown and return to the prompt, not silent wrap-around.
- Each stack counts what it holds. Before every opcode the executor
checks that the stacks hold what it takes and have room for what it
leaves; otherwise the opcode does nothing and the node faults, as for a
bad address, to that kind's handler. Every fault empties both stacks.
- The fault handler is now a table of five jumps: address, data overflow,
data underflow, return overflow, return underflow. The host node says
"Stack overflow", "Stack underflow", "Return stack overflow",
"Return stack underflow", then ERROR and the prompt.
- Two registers, DSTACK-DEPTH and RSTACK-DEPTH: a fetch reads the depth,
a store empties the stack. QUIT, ABORT and the error exits empty the
return stack before they call anything; ABORT empties the data stack.
- capsule/forth.v4: DEPTH, PICK and ROLL, to FORTH-79 (counting from
one). PICK and ROLL set the values above the one wanted aside in
memory, and work with the stack full.
- Division by zero now takes its operands off the stack, as v3 does.
- A colon with no room for its entry abandons the line.
- tests: every opcode at every depth of both stacks; the faults, the
registers and the three words from the prompt.
The sizes are unchanged: ten values, nine return entries.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Ruled 2026-10-04: guarded, an error shown, back to the prompt.
- The executor checks every address a programme uses (P, A, B) before
using it. Outside memory the opcode does nothing, the rest of its word
is not executed, and P becomes the node's fault handler; a node with no
handler stops. v4_node_load/store never index outside memory.
- capsule/quit.v4: (FAULT), the host node's handler, prints
"Address out of range", ends an open definition, prints ERROR and
returns to the prompt.
- tests: every memory opcode and P in test_exec.c; from the prompt, from
inside nested words and loops, in test_host_quit.c.
This closes the hole node.h described: a wild address used to index the
model's own memory gigabytes out of bounds.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
&NAME is the address of a word as a literal; CONST+N is a loader
constant plus an offset as one literal, so that a capsule file can
address the cells of its scratch area without adding at run time.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
'header NAME [flags]' in front of a word gives it a dictionary entry in
the layout capsule/dict.v4 uses, linked to the header before it, so the
words of a capsule are in the dictionary as soon as it is assembled.
The name is taken as it stands (it may be ( or + or ;) and the
assembler's own name for the code may differ.
Tested in the assembler's own test, and by FIND and the field words
running over assembler-made entries beside ones (HEADER) made.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The first layer of the compiler capsule, on the host node: TIB >IN SPAN
SOURCE BL EXPECT QUERY WORD ENCLOSE CONVERT NUMBER and the comment
words. The definitions are text, v4/capsule/core.v4 (the core words
they rest on) and v4/capsule/input.v4, assembled by the text assembler,
which can now read a file.
EXPECT, QUERY, WORD and ENCLOSE behave as v3's. CONVERT and NUMBER are
FORTH-79 (ruled 2026-10-04): any BASE, a double in the standard order,
and NUMBER returns a signed double or sets NODE-ERROR.
Executed at both cell widths against C and against values recorded from
the v3 binary.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Test support, beside the slot packer: reads definitions in the notation
DECOMPOSITION.md uses -- words, opcodes, literals, constants, labels,
branches, FOR NEXT and FOR UNEXT, in-line macros, comments -- and lays
them down through the slot packer, so they no longer have to be retyped
opcode by opcode in C.
Tested by assembling SWAP, UM/MOD, C@ and C! both ways on two nodes and
comparing memory word for word, by running what is assembled, and on
every error it reports, each with its line number.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The console's receive side, standing in for the console node until the
mesh exists, as CONSOLE-TX does for output. A data fetch (@, @+, @b)
from CONSOLE-STATUS gives -1 when a character is pending and 0 when
not; from CONSOLE-RX it gives the next character and takes it, or -1
with none pending. The characters come from a queue the test feeds.
Instruction words and literals are still fetched with v4_node_load, so
code at a register's address is never taken for the register.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
EMIT is a device service: a character sent to the console node. The
mesh and its ports are development step 2 and the memory map is open
(D-4), so the single-node model now stands in for the console with one
memory-mapped register, so that printing words can be run and their
output compared with v3's.
v4_node_console_attach(n, addr): after it, a store to word address
`addr` appends the low 8 bits of the value to a buffer on the node
(V4_CONSOLE_CAP characters, 4096 by default) and does not write memory;
a load from `addr` reads the memory word as before. Characters past the
capacity are counted in console_dropped and discarded. The hook is in
v4_node_store, which all four store opcodes use.
It is off by default: v4_node_reset detaches the console (address -1)
and empties the capture, so the ISA's behaviour and every existing test
are unchanged unless a console is attached. The address is the
caller's choice.
New test v4/tests/test_console.c, 22 checks per width: direct stores,
!b, ! and !+ through the executor printing "Hi!", memory at and around
the register untouched, the low byte only, overflow, detach, a console
at word 0, and reset. At 32- and 64-bit cells, optimised and ASan+UBSan
(`make test`, `make sanitize`); all other v4 tests still pass. Four
mutations of the hook each fail.
DECOMPOSITION.md section 7 gains the CONSOLE-TX row. No printing word is
defined here; EMIT and the words on it are still to do.
Test results on the amd64 host only. This is a development check, not
acceptance (JUSTIFICATION.md section 16).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
First code for StarForth v4 (JUSTIFICATION.md section 10, step 1): one node
of the 32-instruction core as a C99 model, with cell width as a build
parameter.
- Node: P, A, B, F18 circular stacks (10 and 9 deep, D-2), word-addressed
memory (D-1), 5% guard bands on every bounded list.
- Instruction word: six 5-bit slots in 32 bits at every cell width.
- Executor: all 32 opcodes of DECOMPOSITION.md 1.3. Cell arithmetic wraps
explicitly; no signed overflow or implementation-defined shift.
- Heat: per-opcode and per-call-target counters and the anti-clock, driven
by instruction retirement (1.4, D-6 interim).
- Slot packer and runner for tests, and a reference unsigned multiply in
plain C99 with no 128-bit type.
Tests run at 32- and 64-bit cells, and under ASan and UBSan. They cover
every opcode and execute the first section 4 definitions (NIP SWAP OR
NEGATE ROT 0< 0= 2DUP - U<) against the C operation each stands for.
UM* as written in section 4 is exact only while u1 <= 2^(n-2). Two known
failing cases are pinned in test_foundation.c until it is rewritten.
DECOMPOSITION.md: record D-9, the instruction word is 32 bits at every
cell width (ruled 2026-10-02).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
